Facebook, Google's digital advertising dominance crushing ad firms: Report

The dominance of Google and Facebook of digital advertising has led to the number of independent and smaller ad tech companies falling 21 per cent since 2013 to 185 in the second quarter of 2018, the media reported.

According to a report in The New York Times on Sunday, venture capital money going into ad-tech start-ups is falling sharply.

"Online advertising companies have struggled for several years as Google and Facebook solidified their grip on digital dollars, slowing revenue for the others," added the report, citing global marketing research firms including LUMA Partners.

While spending for online ads was more than $88 billion last year, over 90 per cent of that went to Google or Facebook.

"Amazon is also making inroads into advertising, with a new advertising arm, raising the possibility that it will become a top competitor," said the report.

The company generated $2.2 billion in revenue from its advertising business in the second quarter this year.

US senators ask Sundar Pichai about Google's plan of censored China version

Six US senators have written to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking about the tech giant's reported plan to create a censored Chinese version of its search engine.

"What has changed since 2010 to make Google comfortable cooperating with the rigorous censorship regime in China?" asked the senators, including Florida Republican Marco Rubio, Fortune reported on Sunday.

According to the letter, Google's project is "deeply troubling and risks making Google complicit in human rights abuses" in China.

Google in 2010 "refused to comply with Chinese government censorship requirements on ethical grounds, and essentially abandoned the market," said the report.

Media reports surfaced last week that Google is planning a censored search engine for China.

Modi beats Trump, Trudeau to become the most liked world leader on Facebook

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most liked world leader and far ahead of others, including US President Donald Trump, when it comes to popularity on Facebook, according to a study which said 43.2 million people follow the Indian premier on the social media platform.

Trump, who rules the other social media platform Twitter, is in second place with 23.1 million followers, according to the study "World Leaders on Facebook" released today by Burson Cohn & Wolfe.

The study analyses the activity of 650 Facebook pages of heads of state and government and foreign ministers from January 1, 2017 using aggregate data from Facebook's Crowdtangle tool, it said in a statement.

Over the past 14 months, the Facebook page of Trump had by far the most interactions of any world leader on Facebook, with a total of 204.9 million interactions (defined as the total number of comments, likes and shares), almost twice as many as Modi with 113.6 million interactions, the study said.

Modi, 67, has always encouraged use of social media platforms to stay in touch with the public.

Will ensure fair elections in India: Mark Zuckerberg at senate hearing

Testifying before US senators in the wake of Facebook's data breach scandal and foreign interference in election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told them that his company will do everything to ensure fair polling takes place in India and other countries.

"2018 is an important year for the whole world. Several countries like India, Pakistan will have elections. We'll do everything possible to ensure these elections are safe," Zuckerberg said in the joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees, at the Capitol Hill here.

Earlier, the CEO and founder of the world's most popular social networking website said he was "sorry" that Facebook did not take a "broad enough view" of the responsibility when their platform was being used for circulating fake news and was becoming a tool for foreign interference in elections.

The 33-year-old billionaire also expressed regret that his company was slow in identifying the Russian operations in 2016, which allegedly benefitted the then presidential candidate, Donald Trump, who is now USA's 45th president.

Tencent Q4 net profit nearly doubles to 20.8 bn yuan, beats estimates

Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd posted on Wednesday a 98 percent rise in quarterly net profit, beating expectations as it deepens monetisation of the growing traffic on its social networks.

Net profit for the three months ended December 31 rose to 20.8 billion yuan ($3.29 billion), China's largest social media and gaming company said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

That was above an average estimate of 16.90 billion yuan from 9 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue rose 51 percent to 66.39 billion yuan, compared with analysts' average estimate of 69.5 billion yuan. Monthly active users of the social media mobile app WeChat exceeded 1 billion after the Chinese New Year in February, up from 980 million at the end of September.

Net profit for the full 2017 year rose 74 percent to 71.51 billion yuan. The company declared a final dividend of HK$0.88 per share.

Twitter adds new Bookmark feature; now you can save tweets for later

Micro-blogging platform Twitter announced that its 'Bookmarks' feature would be rolled out to all its users on Thursday.

The new feature gives users an opportunity to save any tweets they may like and want to revisit, the Verge reported.

With the current version of Twitter, a tweet could be saved by liking it.

However, with the new update in place, twitterers can save any tweet of their choice with Bookmarks.

Furthermore, with Bookmarks, only the user who saves the tweet will be aware of the same, and not the one whose tweet is saved, or any other user.

In order to bookmark a tweet, a user may tap or click the new 'share' icon available beneath a tweet, where the message icon was earlier positioned.

Twitter also announced the amalgamation of sharing options under one bracket. Therefore, with the new version, a user may share a tweet via direct message, share it elsewhere outside of Twitter, or bookmark it

NRI Google techie held for molesting US woman at 5-star New Delhi hotel

A 22-year-old NRI, working as a software engineer for Google on contract basis, has been arrested for allegedly molesting a US woman in a five-star hotel in New Delhi, police said on Friday.

Police said Anmol Singh Kharbanda met and struck a conversation with the 52-year-old woman at the hotel bar around 10 p.m. on January 8.

"Kharbanda, a California-based Non-Resident Indian, met the victim in the lounge and introduced himself to her. He offered her drinks and a smoke in his hotel room," Additional Commissioner of Police B. K Singh told IANS.

"Kharbanda took her to his room and groped her.

She pushed him away and ran out," Singh said.

The shocked victim, staying in another room of the hotel, locked herself in for the entire night. The next day, she went away for a meeting in Jaipur and returned in the evening.

After her return from Jaipur, she complained against Kharbanda to the Chanakyapuri police station and hotel security.

"We registered an FIR under Sections 354 and 328 of the Indian Penal Code and got her statement recorded before the City Magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC," the officer added.

Unaware of the legal action against him, Kharbanda was busy in his official work. He visited the Gurugram office (Google head office in India).

"When he returned to the hotel room on January 9 night, the hotel security informed the police and he was arrested," the ACP added.

He has since been sent to judicial custody.